Level Two
by Cassandra Cassidy
Summary: A fic about the Krimzon Guards. Under each suit of armor, there's a person. This is a glimpse into one such person's life, on an ordinary day. Oneshot. Written for rinoaleonheart's LJ challenge.


_Author's Notes: Written for rionaleonhart over at jak(underscore)fanfics on LJ. She said there ought to be more fics written about the Krimzon Guards. So, here we go. _:)

…_Possibly my shortest ANs ever. _XD

_Warnings: Some swearing, and heroes portrayed as bad guys. It's from the KG's POV, after all. Implied killing. Mild spoilers for Jak II._

_Disclaimer: Bryan and Davies as characters kind of belong to me (in name and background only). Most of their dialogue came straight from the game, though, with a few alterations and additions. Everything out of the Jak universe is copyrighted to Naughty Dog._

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**Level Two**

* * *

Another day, another uneventful patrol of the Haven City prison. Bryan let out a sigh behind his uniform's mouth-guard as he paced his designated corridor on Level Two. Really, prison-patrol was always dull. Most of the prisoners were too terrified of the Baron – or hurt by whatever had landed them in jail to begin with – to put up any kind of a fight. The few real convicts they did have were completely harmless without their beloved firearms, so Bryan and his fellow Krimzon Guards had a tendency to quit paying attention to them after a few idle hours.

Occasionally, Bryan felt bad for them. After all, the majority of those held in the jail were there because a family member had done something disruptive, or because they'd made some off-hand comment about the state of the city. But he supposed that was what they got for disobeying the Baron. The law was the law, whether they agreed with it or not.

Bryan's best pal and shift-partner Davies, on the other hand, had no sympathy for anyone whatsoever.

"I'm bored!" Davies whined in his slightly-nasal voice, kicking at the grate in the floor. "I wanna crunch heads."

Bryan shook his own head and sighed again. They'd been friends even before joining the KG, but sometimes he just couldn't keep up with Davies' enthusiasm for abusing their power. Davies was shifting from foot to foot now, obviously still antsy about the last city patrol they'd been on earlier in the week, as he proved with his next query:

"Next time we're out, can I shoot a civvy?"

Like Bryan had the ability to authorize such a thing. He rolled his eyes, invisible behind his goggles. "If something interesting doesn't happen soon, I'm gonna shoot YOU," he said, but it was all in good humor.

His comrade snorted. A few moments passed in relative silence, aside from the hissing of the pipes along the walls.

"I've been on duty for two days straight," Davies spoke up again, tossing his rifle from hand to hand.

"Don't complain," Bryan said, grimacing, "I've got sewer patrol next week."

"Poor bastard!" Davies snickered at him. "Which commander'd you piss off?"

Bryan gave a non-committal grunt, and Davies laughed again, before nudging Bryan with his armor-clad elbow.

"Let's go get drinks later," he suggested.

Bryan nodded; he was going to need a night out after a shift like this. His legs ached from standing around all day in his heavy armor, and he suspected his eyes might be drying up in their sockets.

It was at times like this that he had to remind himself why he was in the Guard to begin with; he was there in the interest of his family. The Baron had promised ample provisions to any family who had a relative in the KG. Bryan had his elderly parents to take care of, as well as his wife and their eight-year-old son. His position here kept food on their table, water running from their pipes, and a leak-free roof over their heads.

"I say, death to the Underground!" Davies was saying; Bryan had been tuning him out, but this new topic shook him back to the present once again. He nodded at his friend's sentiment.

"I wanna kill that Shadow guy," he agreed. The Underground movement was a huge detriment to Haven City's progress, and had been making more messes lately than Bryan and his fellow Guards could clean up. The Baron was doing all he could to keep the Metal Heads at bay, and yet this bunch of ruffians thought they could do better by tampering with the shield walls and causing upheaval in the streets. It made Bryan sick.

"Don't forget that traitor, Torn," Davies piped in again. Bryan's hands tightened around his rifle.

"Death's too good for him," he said viciously, and Davies punched a fist through the air in agreement.

_Ex_-Commander Torn had been an inspiration to Bryan back when he'd first joined the KG. He'd been shocked to find out that he himself was older than their commander, who'd worked his ass off to rise through the ranks as quickly as he had. But it turned out that Torn was nothing but a two-faced coward; he'd abandoned them all, spreading lies about Baron Praxis, and had eventually formed the Underground himself. Bryan hated him now.

He was cut off from voicing his thoughts as the prison's alarm suddenly sprang to life.

"Alert! Prison escape in progress," a robotic voice blared over the P.A. system as red lights began to flash. Bryan could hear boots pounding on the floor above them.

"Holy shit, man! Are they serious!" Davies sounded thrilled over the incessant beeping of the alarm. Both of them hefted their guns as a voice crackled over Bryan's communicator:

"We have movement on Level One!"

A few seconds later, "Prisoner sighted – we've got 'im!"

Bryan glanced at Davies, who shrugged and kept his gun pointed in the direction of the only entrance to the hallway. Muffled gunfire sounded from overhead.

"Won't last long," Davies said blandly. "Every KG in the building'll be on this guy before he has time to throw a punch!"

Bryan nodded again, but as the noise continued, he started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. They hadn't caught him yet? Just who was this guy, anyway? They hadn't had a successful escape attempt in all the time Bryan'd been serving under the Baron. And hadn't he seen Commander Erol in the building just this morning? Surely he'd get things under control…

Bryan's eyes widened as a panicked shout rang through the comm. system, "We're taking heavy casualties! There he is – open fire!"

"See anything?" he asked Davies.

"Nah," his friend replied.

"Keep your eyes peeled."

His comm. unit beeped; someone was trying to call through a secured channel. He hit the button to accept the transmission:

"Prisoner on level two!" hollered the crackling voice. Bryan's heart pounded as he re-adjusted his hold on his weapon.

"Just got a radio alert – stay frosty!" he told Davies, just as the other yelled,

"You're busted!"

Bryan looked up just time to see Davies let off a shot at the newcomer who had just come tearing around the corner. He missed. The prisoner – Precursors, he looked like he was just a kid! – threw a punch that nailed Davies straight in the face, or it would have, if his fist hadn't connected with the metal of Davies' helmet first. Davies fell backward with a yelp of surprise as Bryan quickly switched his weapon to its tazer mode.

"Eat this!" he snarled, firing at the blond. He got a direct hit. The guy cried out in pain, but shook it off a second later as easily as a crocadog shakes off water.

"Get 'im, Jak! We're almost out!" a high-pitched voice rose over the still-screaming alarm; if Bryan hadn't known better, he'd have said it had come from the weird orange animal perched on the prisoner's shoulder.

The momentary distraction cost him; the figure suddenly whirled into action, doing some sort of bizarre spin-attack that caught Bryan square in the chest, flinging him against the far wall. Dazed, the wind knocked completely out of him, he could only remain sitting in a useless stupor as the prisoner stalked toward him.

Davies had returned to his feet, and he fired at the blond a second time. Bryan didn't see if it connected or not as the prisoner whipped around to attack Davies again, and when at last the flurry of motion stopped, Davies lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. As he struggled to his feet once more, Bryan hoped to whatever higher power might be listening that his buddy wasn't dead and that he wasn't about to be, either.

All his hope vanished the second Bryan caught sight of the prisoner's eyes. The almost-black irises seemed to crackle with electricity, and it was then that Bryan suddenly noticed that reinforcements hadn't arrived. Where was everyone?

"_We're taking heavy casualties!"_ The words floated back to him as the prisoner approached. This guy couldn't have killed everyone on Level One with his bare hands… could he?

"What the hell ARE you!" he yelled, firing electricity at the blond again. This time, it didn't even seem to faze him as he simply walked right through it until he was just a foot from Bryan. As the young man lunged at him with the obvious intent to kill, Bryan closed his eyes like a coward, paralyzed with fear.

'At least this rules out sewer duty next week,' he thought fleetingly, before pain exploded through him and the world went black.

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_End Notes: Comments and criticisms welcome. Hopefully the ending wasn't too abrupt or clichéd. _x . x;


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